rather than urgent canvass. Her line of sailing
would take her about two hundred yards to leeward of us, and my first
impulse was to luff. A second glance showed us she was an English frigate,
and we doused our lugg as soon as possible. Our hearts were in our mouths
for the next five minutes. My eye never turned from that frigate, as she
hove by us, now rising on the summit of a sea, now falling gracefully into
the trough, concealing everything but her spars from sight. Glad enough
were we, when she had got so far ahead as to bring us well on her
weather-quarter, though we did not dare set our sail again, until her
dark, glistening hull, with its line of frowning ports, was shut up in the
cloud of mist, leaving the spot on the ocean where she had last been
seen, as if she were not. That was one of those hair-breadth escapes that
often occur to men engaged in hazardous undertakings, without any direct
agency of their own.

Our next adventure was of a more pleasing character. A good-sized ship was
made astern, coming up channel before the wind, and carrying top-mast
studding-sails. She was an American! On this point we were all agreed, and
placing ourselves in her track, we ran off, on her course, knowing that
she must be going quite two feet to our one. In twenty minutes she passed
close to us, her officers and crew manifesting the greatest curiosity to
learn who and what we were. So dexterously did Marble manage the boat,
that we got a rope, and hauled alongside without lessening the ship's way,
though she nearly towed us under water in the attempt. The moment we
could, we leaped on deck, abandoning the boat to its fate.

We had not mistaken the character of the vessel. It was a ship from James'
river, loaded with tobacco, and bound to Amsterdam. Her master heard our
story, believed it, and felt for us. We only remained with him a week,
however, quitting his vessel off the coast of Holland, to go to Hamburg,
where I fancied my letters would have been sent, and whence I knew it
would be equally in our power to reach home. At Hamburg, I was fated to
meet with disappointment. There was not a line for me, and we found
ourselves without money in a strange place. I did not deem it prudent to
tell our story, but we agreed to ship together in some American, and work
our way home in the best manner we could. After looking about us a little,
necessity compelled us to enter in the first vessel that offered. This was
a Philadelphi